When Stonehill College senior Sean Borger heard about a rape inside a campus dormitory, he wasn’t surprised.

Borger, who heads the student-run Moore Center for Gender Equity at Stonehill, has heard of similar sexual assaults on campus, and said such incidents often “go unreported” to school police or authorities.

“It’s not shocking with our rape culture on campus that we have,” said Borger, 22, who also has worked as a resident assistant in a Stonehill dormitory for the past three years. “I mean, it’s devastating, obviously, but I think I’m almost desensitized to that kind of stuff right now.”

Borger spoke in the wake of a Nov. 23 rape at the private, Catholic college of 2,500. Easton police are searching for the suspects, and circulated sketches of the two men last week.

Federal statistics – which colleges must maintain – appear to support how Borger feels. In six years – from 2007 to 2012 – there have been at least 20 sexual assaults reported on the Stonehill campus, according to federal data. None of those cases, The Enterprise has learned, resulted in any criminal charges – a trend that one law enforcement expert called “unusual.”

“If there are 20 cases reported, at face value, it’s unusual that none of them resulted in an arrest,” said Mitch Librett, a criminal justice professor at Bridgewater State University and a former New York police officer.

By comparison, arrests have been made after sexual assaults were reported at other college campuses, including:

A Curry College student was barred from the school’s Milton campus after his Dec. 6 arrest for an alleged sexual assault. A criminal complaint filed by Milton police indicated that the attack took place Nov. 14 on the campus.

In January, three men were arrested and charged with aggravated rape in connection with an alleged assault in a Curry dormitory after an on-campus dance. Two of the men were former Curry students.

Last year, four Pittsfield teens were arrested and charged with raping an 18-year-old female University of Massachusetts student in her campus dormitory in Amherst.

Stonehill Police Chief Peter Carnes said it’s up to the alleged victim whether criminal charges are pursued. He said Stonehill students are often more willing to go through a college hearing process after a sexual assault than pursue a criminal case.

“It does concern me to some degree, but we have to support the victim and we have to support the victim with their choices,” Carnes said during an interview Thursday at the college’s police station.

Carnes would not say if the 20 cases were ever investigated by Easton police or any other outside law enforcement agency.

At least one prominent victims’ advocate is questioning whether the suspects in the Stonehill assaults are being held accountable.

Page 2 of 3 - “It speaks to the need for the conversation and a real deep soul-searching on campus,” said Toni Troop, a spokeswoman for Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence. “Are the victims getting the support that they deserve, and are the students who are alleged to be the perpetrators being held accountable for the violence?”

Troop said there needs to be more inquiry “on that campus with students and the crisis center to determine what’s leading to that outcome.”

“Is it that the victims are being dissuaded somehow (from pursuing charges)?” Troop asked.

Stonehill spokesman Martin McGovern defended the college’s response to sexual assaults on campus, saying the school does not prevent students from moving forward with criminal prosecution.

“Our whole focus is on supporting the victim,” McGovern said. “We lay out the choices for the victim and our concern and our energies are geared toward the victim, to make the victim comfortable so that the victim knows there are options.”

When asked to address the comment by Borger, the student, that there is a “rape culture” on campus, Carnes said he couldn’t.

“I don’t have that information,” Carnes said. “I know the campus supports victims. I know they aggressively investigate the reports, but I couldn’t possibly respond to that student’s perception.”

The number of sexual assaults on college campuses nationwide is staggering and at an “epidemic” level, experts said.

In a 2012 study of undergraduate women, 19 percent – about 1 in 5 women – had experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. The situation is exacerbated by college officials who worry more about the school’s reputation being tarnished, said Wendy Murphy, a nationally recognized expert on child abuse and sex crimes and a former prosecutor in Middlesex County.

“Schools are the biggest part of the problem,” Murphy said. “Schools worry more about their reputation than the well-being of women. We know statistically that schools rarely, if ever, take any meaningful steps toward perpetrators. They don’t want to lose the tuition. It’s that simple.”

Murphy, who has filed complaints against Ivy League schools, including Harvard University, for their handling of sexual violence on campus, said crimes on college campuses are still crimes against society, and they should be prosecuted publicly.

Murphy, while not addressing the Stonehill attacks specifically, warned of the risk in trusting colleges to handle a crime that occurred on its campus.

“It’s unconscionable,” she said, “to try to excuse the lack of criminal prosecution by pointing out some hidden disciplinary process (on campus) that the public can’t have access to.”